Two deputy US Marshals were shot and a man wanted for opening fire on a Massachusetts state trooper was killed during a wild gun battle in The Bronx early Friday.
The marshals, with the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, were part of a team executing a warrant at 4085 Ely Avenue in Wakefield at around 5:30 a.m., in search of Andre Sterling, 35, when the chaos began, authorities and law enforcement sources said.
Sterling was wanted for shooting a Bay State trooper in the hand and torso during a traffic stop last week.
As investigators entered a first-floor apartment inside the five-family building, Sterling opened fire on them with a handgun, sources said. The marshals returned gunfire and Sterling was, in turn, fatally shot.
One marshal was hit in the leg, and another was struck in the arm and leg, according to the marshals’ office. They were taken to Jacobi Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
An NYPD warrant detective who was on the periphery for security suffered a broken leg while helping the marshals evacuate, according to the sources.
A 35-year-old man who lives in the apartment where Sterling had been holed up was also taken to Jacobi Medical Center with a head wound, according to law enforcement sources, who added that the man was either Sterlings’ cousin or friend.
The shootout, which sparked a massive police response, shocked neighbors on the residential block.
“I heard a number of shots, I can’t say how many,” said one resident who only gave his first name, Anthony. “Then I heard sirens, a lot of them — crazy non-stop. It seems like the cops were coming to the scene. I saw four helicopters — three stationary and the fourth moving around the area where the shots came from.”
Israel Quinones, 50, said he was in bed “and all I heard was gunshots.”
“I opened my window, I looked and I saw a couple of people in uniforms running back and forth,” he said. “After I heard all that noise, I closed my curtain. I didn’t want any shots going through my window.”
One tenant who lives at the building where Sterling was hiding out said the fugitive had been there less than a week.
“He hid what was going on. Nobody suspected anything,” she said. “We don’t know him.”
Sterling, who Massachusetts State Police had described as “armed and dangerous,” shot Trooper John Lennon around 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 20 during a traffic stop in Hyannis, police there said.
Last week, Massachusetts officials announced that arrest warrants had been obtained charging Sterling with armed assault with intent to murder and related offenses for the shooting.
The suspect, a native of Jamaica, has two additional Massachusetts warrants for charges including identity fraud and assault and battery on a police officer, Massachusetts State Police said.
He is also wanted in Wyoming on narcotics charges, the state cops said.
Law enforcement sources said Sterling has previously been nabbed in Florida and Massachusetts for marijuana busts.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Khristina Narizhnaya